Ignorance and Remembrance

Fear is never easy to confront. 

Ask even the bravest man, and he’ll tell you that he struggled to face his fears. Of course, there are different types of fears. Some are quite easy to avoid. Some are everywhere. Some fears come true uncommonly. Some fears come true all the time.

Now, lucky for Griffin, his fear came true rather uncommonly and was rather easy to avoid. It was a rather typical fear, however. Most everyone has this fear, he’s found. No one wanted to face this fear, though. It wasn’t exactly a fear that you could simply walk up to, make fun of, and feel a bit better. No, it wasn’t even something you could really plan for.

Griffin stretched, yawning, as he sat up in bed. Looking at the clock, he realized that he had slept much later than usual, a whole hour to be exact.

The truth is, he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, or any nights before that, as a matter of fact. For hours and hours on end, he’d been left tossing and turning, trying as hard as he could to shake off his anxieties but to no avail.

Shrugging, Griffin slid out of bed, deciding to simply skip his morning run and just grab a quick breakfast. His apartment wasn’t much. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchenette. Now, Griffin wasn’t exactly what you’d call a neat freak, so the entire place was kind of a mess, save for the second bedroom, which Griffin never touched. There were socks and other articles of clothing scattered across the floor and a pile of dirty dishes a mile high sitting in the sink. Despite the clutter, the apartment felt empty.

With a frown, Griffin thought that perhaps he should clean up a little bit. Afterall, he would probably be having company later in the week. Another convincing factor could be that when Griffin opened the cabinet to grab a bowl for his sugary cereal, he realized that there were no clean bowls.

“I’ll get it later,” Griffin mumbled as he grabbed a plate.

Once he had gotten his plate of cereal, Griffin settled in front of the television which rested near the lone couch in the apartment. He flipped it on, the television automatically playing the last channel that had been on.

“-total of ninety-three died in the attack last week,” the news announcer blasted.

Quickly, Griffin changed the channel, opting to watch cartoons instead. He never watched the news; it was much too stressful for him. In fact, Griffin couldn’t remember the last time he had willingly watched the news. Although, he hadn’t watched television in over a week either; he’d been… busy.

Quickly scarfing down his dry cereal, Griffin pulled on a clean(ish) pair of pants and grabbed his briefcase and keys, locking the door behind him as he exited the apartment. Griffin didn’t have a car or bike, so he got his fair share of exercise walking the three blocks distance to the office. Perhaps it was healthy, but it was a walk that he loathed, especially now. The streets were rather empty today. They had been for over a week. At least the weather was nice, Griffin supposed.

Once he arrived at his desired destination, the security guard greeted him with a forced cheerfulness.

“Mornin’, Griffin!” he belted. “How was your weekend?”

“Fine,” Griffin mumbled in response, opting to take the stairs instead of prolonging the conversation while waiting for the elevator.

It wasn’t a long walk up the stairs, only three floors. On the way up, however, he ran into his coworker, Jenny, who waved energetically upon seeing him.

“Hey, Griffin!” she said, going two steps at a time to catch up with him. “How’ve ya been?”

Sighing, Griffin stopped walking so that she could catch up to him. “Fine.”

Jenny reached her companion rather quickly, panting from exertion. “Ah, well, that’s about all we can expect in times like these, yes?”

Continuing his endeavor up the stairs, Griffin didn’t respond.

“Have you found a new apartment yet?” Jenny asked, walking beside him.

“No.”

“Are you still trying to find a new one or did you decide against it? I overheard you talking to yourself and saying that you might want to keep it despite the fact that you don’t need the extra space. Why is that?”

“None of your business, Jenny.”

“Ah, sorry, that’s probably personal. I didn’t mean to pry. Anyways, we should go and get a drink sometime! I’m sure that you’ve been lonely this past week.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Really? I thought that you were rather close to-”

“Goodbye, Jenny,” Griffin interrupted, pushing open the door to his floor.

“Oh! Bye, Griffin! Have a nice-”

He closed the door before she could finish speaking and sighed. He had such nosy coworkers. He really wished that they would simply leave him alone, but, alas, they never did. As he arrived at his cubicle, he relished in the peaceful silence, pulling out his pen and getting to work on the stack of paperwork that was on his desk. At least he wasn’t a lawyer. That seemed much more difficult.

“Hey, Griffin,” Loren, the only person in the building that he tolerated, said. “What’s up?”

Sighing, Griffin pushed away from his desk and looked at his friend. “Way too much paperwork,” he complained.

Loren snickered at his misery. “I could take some if you want.”

“Don’t you have your own to do?”

“Eh, nothing that I can’t handle,” she shrugged.

With a frown, Griffin shook his head. “Then, there’s no way I’m giving you some of mine, too.”

“Drat.” Loren snapped her fingers. “No more extra work for me, then, I guess.”

“Absolutely not.”

Loren laughed and leaned against the cubicle walls. “So, you want to go visit his grave with me this weekend?”

At this, Griffin tensed, looking away. “Uh, no, I don’t think I have time this weekend.”

“Oh, really? What will you be doing, then?”

“...cleaning my apartment,” he stuttered out.

“You? Cleaning your apartment? As if,” Loren said. “Now, tell me. Why don’t you want to go?”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Griffin hissed.

Not giving in, Loren chuckled. “Are you kidding me? Barely anyone’s here, Griffin. This is busy work.”

“So? This will reflect well on us in the future.”

She paused for a moment. “Griffin, our boss isn’t even here.”

“I- Wait, he isn’t?” Griffin said, shocked.

“No way! He lost someone in the attack, ya know. He took this whole week off.”

“Oh.”

“Why didn’t you? Isn’t it difficult being here?”

“No.”

Loren inched closer. “Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to ignore this?”

“It’s fine,” Griffin insisted.

“Come on, Griffin,” Loren continued. “We can go together. I won’t even make fun of you if you cry.”

“I wouldn’t cry!” he growled.

“Alright, alright, sorry!” she laughed, putting her hands up. “Really, though, you have to face it at some point.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m sorry to say that you do.”

Sinking deeper into his chair, Griffin frowned. “Are you going to make me go?”

“Heavens, no!” Loren cried. “If you really don’t want to go, then I certainly won’t make you, but I really think it would be good for you.”

Griffin didn’t respond.

“Ah, well, I think I’ve been pestering you for long enough. I’ll be off, then,” she said.

“You’re leaving?”

“Of course! I only came to work to talk to you, stupid,” Loren teased.

Griffin relaxed a bit, snickering. “You ever hear of a phone, Loren?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue as to what you’re talking about,” she shrugged with a wink. “Hey, you should come with me. We could get brunch or something.”

Griffin’s heart warmed at the thought, but he decided against it. He had something else that he really should do first…

“No…” he sighed. “I think I have something else I need to do first.”

Loren smiled knowingly at her friend and backed off. “Oh, alright, then. I hope it goes well!”

With that, Loren walked off, likely to gather her things and leave. Griffin smiled a bit and placed his pen back into his briefcase before standing up and making his way towards the elevator.

“Leavin’ so soon, Griffin?” the security guard asked once he reached the bottom floor. “Never seen you leave early before,” he remarked.

“Yeah, I’m leaving early,” Griffin said, stepping out of the elevator. “I’ve got something important to do.”

“Ah, okay! Good luck!” the security guard said with a wave as he turned back down to continue whatever he was doing on his computer.

As Griffin stepped out onto the sidewalk, he realized how pleasant the weather actually was. There was a light breeze, and it wasn’t too hot or too cold. It was perfect weather for walking, but Griffin was planning on taking a train. Even he had his limits, and, frankly, he was quite lazy. He made his way to the nearest subway entrance and climbed down the stairs. Like the streets above it, the subway was almost completely bare of people.

Griffin’s eyes wandered over to the map, and it took him a moment to figure out which route he had to take in order to reach his destination. He’d never been one to ride the train, opting to walk or simply not go instead. It was just his luck that almost immediately after he (mostly) figured out where to go, the train had arrived at the station.

He walked through the dirty, slimy doors and onto the even dirtier and slimier train. Griffin took the nearest seat, the doors closed, and they were off.

It was dark in the tunnels, and the fact that one of the lights in his car was burnt out left Griffin all but bathed in darkness. Perhaps he had been since the attack last week. Griffin stopped this line of thought.

It didn’t take long for the speedy train to reach Griffin’s stop, and he quickly hopped out of the train before the doors could close and the train could zoom off with him still inside of it.

Unlike most of the other places in the vicinity, the graveyard was crowded with a multitude of people. Perhaps they had also lost someone, or perhaps everyone else’s losses had reminded them of their own. Either way, the sidewalks were full, and it took Griffin almost five minutes to reach the far corner of the graveyard. This is where most of the dead from the attack had been buried, only really known by the police and their loved ones until a monument would inevitably be built to display their tragic ends. It was almost ironic. Nothing about these people would be remembered by anyone except how they died. It didn’t matter how well they lived, the only lasting thing would be their deaths.

Griffin looked at the multitude of new graves, and his eyes settled on one inscribed with the simple name: “Gray”. Seeing that grave, Griffin couldn’t stand the thought of forgetting. It shouldn’t matter how a person dies. No, it should only matter that we remember how that person lived.

Smiling sadly as tears ran down his face, Griffin made a promise.

“I won’t forget you, brother. I’ll never forget you.”